I started my blog and disappeared! It’s been a crazy couple of months!
Loads has been going on, but the biggest is that I had a baby! Starting at around 36 weeks I started having some crazy, regular contractions. He’s measured ahead since the beginning so I wasn’t too terribly worried if he came early and when I started having contractions with my other boys that was the day they were born.
Well it turns out that even after two term births and two miscarriages, that there was still something to learn about the ever crazy uterus. I was experiencing prodromal labor or irritable uterus depending on who you ask. It started at 36 weeks and didn’t end until I was induced at 39 weeks for gestational diabetes.
For 3 weeks I felt like I was starting to go into labor every other day. They would get closer together, hurt more, and then suddenly stop after hours. It. Was. Exhausting. By the end you’re looking for things to bargain to just get out of limbo.
Anyways, I was induced on 3-14-2017 (Pi day!), labored all day, and had my sweet little boy 38 minutes into 3-15-2017. Not as cool as Pi day, but it was over and although he arrived blue he and I were both fine.
Then, one day after he was born, the tickle started. After three days it turned into a cough. I am now 6 weeks postpartum and over the course of that 6 weeks I had the chest cold that everyone else had been passing around since December, I’m pretty sure it turned into an infection with the many weeks of coughing up yellow globs, then it turned into a sinus infection, and now it’s finally just an occasional wheeze. During that time I also had the pleasure of having two stomach bugs, a UTI(probably from dehydration with stomach bug so soon after having a catheter with the epidural), had to recover from the antibiotics from UTI, and I was breastfeeding the entire time.
Thankfully, today I’ve gotten the news that I am recovered down yonder and I passed my postpartum glucose test(part of having gestational diabetes). As you can imagine, not a whole lot of physical activity took place during that time. In fact, the plants I had growing indoors got too dry and I started over with some starts and some seeds.
Currently, I have several types of lettuce growing, several types of tomatoes, cucumbers, various herbs, and I even planted some orange seeds and after I gave up hope they even decided to sprout! Right now I’m just focusing on my birth recovery as well as my growing baby and reconnecting with my older boys. It’s been weird with my now middle child no longer being my baby. I’m sad for that loss, but also happy that we are all moving forward.
I also feel like I can finally move forward to get back into the gardening and planning for the bigger garden and future coop. I haven’t enjoyed those things to their fullest since between the losses we had. I’d already gotten chicks and started the garden when the baby died on 4-20-2015 at 19 weeks, but measuring 12. I poured myself into the animals and plants and it was truly healing. I figured I’d move past this “fluke” and have a baby later and everything would work out. After the second loss we were already planning our move so there wasn’t a point in starting a garden and I was rehoming the chickens. It felt like so many losses at once.
To now be at the point that I am kissing my rainbow baby and planning again for my future feels better than anything. We even got out this weekend. We visited a farm during the Piedmont Farm Tour in North Carolina. I wait all year to get this “fix” and I was not disappointed! There was a momentary flashback to the grief being that it was almost 2 years on the nose from the first loss, but it faded away walking through that farm to see the animals, show my kids, ogle their organic garden, and just stroll through the wildflowers.
I look forward to what else this year and the years to come has to bring now that I am finally feeling myself and nearly whole again!
A Hen and Her Chicks 